Amy Menefee's blog

Congress is buzzing about attacking health care after the Easter recess. Coming off the success of the tea parties nationwide, let’s carry that momentum to the fight to protect our rights as patients and Americans.

First, for those of you who are ready to act, the practical tools to get you started. Then, the background.

1. Sign this petition: It asks politicians to “First, Do No Harm” as they consider health reform. A quick look will give you plenty to shout about! 

2. Enter this video contest: Think about all your fellow Americans who need to understand why we believe as we do about health care. Why don’t we want the federal government making decisions about our health and controlling our insurance coverage? Make a creative video that will reach your neighbors and arrest their attention! 

What it’s all about:

If you’ve been focused on Tax Day and need a little catching up on health care, we’ve got you covered. The Health Policy Consensus Group, a coalition of free-market health policy experts, put together a statement expressing the dangers of proposals on the table. This gives a great rundown of what needs to be stopped, and why. Pass it around! [In case you’re wondering, the next Consensus Group statement will detail what we’re FOR – but first, we felt we needed to explain why we’re against these proposals.]

Some background:

Health care is a tax issue, too. We will be called upon to fund the $634-billion (some now say $1-trillion) health agenda of President Obama, and the billions for the Health and Human Services Department to head up health IT and comparative effectiveness research. But that’s only the beginning.

An individual mandate for health insurance – ordering everyone to purchase a certain government-determined policy – would carry tax penalties for those who don’t comply. In Massachusetts, where they’re a step ahead on this experiment, that annual penalty for noncompliance has passed the $1,000 mark and is rising. 

Even more likely: new mandates on businesses to provide a government-designated level of benefits and to pay the piper if they don’t. Punishing businesses for hiring people isn’t the way to help workers already struggling in this economy.

Each new tax chips away at our freedom. And there are other freedoms in the balance in this debate. The creation of a public insurance program, whether it looks like a Medicare-for-all or a slight knockoff, threatens our options for health insurance. The hallmark of Medicare and Medicaid, those huge government insurance programs, is paying doctors and hospitals at much lower rates. Private insurance – that is, the rest of us – makes up the difference now, but what if private insurance isn’t around any more?

A new public (and yes, that means government-run, even though The New York Times thinks that term is fearmongering) health insurance plan would be able to set its premium prices far lower than private insurance. What business can compete with tax subsidies and severe underpricing?

Along with the artificially low premiums, a public insurance plan would more than likely pay doctors and hospitals less for their services than private insurance does. Medicare doesn’t even cover health providers’ costs. If millions more Americans join a public plan that pays like Medicare, we could face a serious crisis just to keep doctors and hospitals in business. Considering we already have a shortage of primary care doctors, this doesn’t sound like a grand idea.

You spread the word and got fired up about your taxes. Now what about your health? Your health, your freedom to make choices about your family’s health care, not to mention MORE taxes – these are worth your time.  

Sign the petition

Enter the video contest

The rhetoric about "stimulus" gets more head-spinning every day. As I note in my Galen Institute post today, folks like Heritage's Robert Book have picked up on the insanity of spending more (taxpayer) money where we're supposed to be reducing costs in health care.

Interestingly, we're not the only nation trying to spend our way out of an economic downturn in this area. China has announced it will provide universal health care for all 1.3 billion of its people.

A Chinese study showed "that in government-sponsored health insurance areas, people are spending more" -- and they see this as a good thing!

So, more government financing should strengthen the economy... and raise health care costs, too?

Those who are commenting on the stimulus should call attention to this disconnect in logic.

While you're at it, spread word far and wide about this scary language from the House on comparative effectiveness -- two long words that mean government could decide which drugs and treatments are acceptable. Here you go:

"By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and health care professionals, those items, procedures, and interventions that are most effective to prevent, control, and treat health conditions will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and, in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."

This is part of the "stimulus."

Read more.

Promoted by Matt Moon: Bob Carroll of the Tax Foundation explains McCain's health credit better than McCain does in today's WSJ. Health care is one of those issues that the next conservative movement must provide new ideas for.

As the election hoopla crescendos, Hawaii is giving the rest of us a little preview of what health care mandates could do in the next presidency.

Barack Obama's only mandate is that all children have health insurance. Hawaii tried to accomplish this through its government, and sadly, revealed the problems.

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, writes in the New York Post:

"Hawaii just had a vivid lesson in health-care economics, learning that if you offer people insurance for free - surprise, surprise - they'll quickly drop other coverage to enroll.

"As a result, Hawaii is ending the only state universal child health-care program in the country after just seven months.

"The program, called the Keiki (Child) Care Plan, was designed to provide coverage to children whose parents can't afford private insurance but who make too much to qualify for other public programs (such as Medicaid and Hawaii's State Children's Health Insurance Program). Keiki Care was free for these gap kids, except for a $7 office-visit fee.

"But then state officials found that families were dropping private coverage to enroll their children in the plan. 'People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,' said Dr. Kenny Fink of Hawaii's Department of Human Services."

A lesson in human nature and government we can't soon forget.

It's important for conservatives to know where McCain stands on health care, because his policy positions are under attack. For example, do you know how to respond if someone issues this challenge: "McCain wants to tax your health benefits"?

Kudos to CBS reporter Wyatt Andrews, who dug a little deeper into Obama's No. 1 scare line about McCain's health plan. (text and video available here.)

Yes, health benefits would be taxed -- right before people are given a tax credit to offset that tax.

People who currently get health insurance through their jobs are already getting a tax break -- it's just invisible because their employers are the ones paying the insurance premiums. The average tax break for a family under the current system for job-based insurance is $4,200 per year.

McCain would offer families a $5,000 tax credit. They could keep their job-based insurance if they want, but they could also shop around -- across state lines, even, under his proposal -- for a deal that suits them.

Andrews consulted Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center, who said, "Families at all income levels would pay lower taxes, at least on average. On average, it is about a $1,200 tax cut in 2009."